Instant messaging refers to real time communication between two or more people over a network, such as the Internet. A user requires a client program and a connection to an instant messaging service. Usually the instant messaging service is administered by an instant messenger server. The composition and function of these servers are well known in the art. Once connected to an instant messaging service, users can send messages, including text and graphics, in real time. The activity is often referred to as “chatting”. A conversation can be held with two or more people on the same computer, network, or across the Internet.
Another contemporary working environment is email. Email refers to asynchronous communication between two or more people over a network, such as the Internet. A series of related email, usually in the format of original message, reply, re-reply, etc., form a thread. An email thread is not usually made publicly available or remotely accessible.
A forum, or Internet forum, is an application on the internet for holding discussions. These include web-based forums, dial-up bulletin boards, and Internet newsgroups. Most forum software allows a plurality of threads to coexist. These threads hold messages created by users. Users can post entries in existing threads or start new threads. Forum software packages are widely available on the Internet, and are written in a variety of programming languages, such as PHP, Perl, Java and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in text files or in a database. Each package offers a different variety of features, from the most basic providing text-only postings to more advanced packages offering multimedia support and formatting. Many packages can be integrated into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments. One significant difference between forums and electronic mail is that email is automatically delivered to the recipients, while forums require the member to visit the forum.
Business Intelligence (BI) generally refers to software tools used to improve business enterprise decision-making. These tools are commonly applied to financial, human resource, marketing, sales, customer and supplier analyses. More specifically, these tools can include: reporting and analysis tools to present information; content delivery infrastructure systems for delivery and management of reports and analytics; data warehousing systems for cleansing and consolidating information from disparate sources; and data management systems, such as relational databases or On Line Analytic Processing (OLAP) systems used to collect, store, and manage raw data.
A subset of business intelligence tools are report generation tools. There are a number of commercially available products to produce reports from stored data. For instance, Business Objects Americas of San Jose, Calif., sells a number of widely used report generation products, including Crystal Reports™, Business Objects OLAP Intelligence™, Business Objects Web Intelligence™, and Business Objects Enterprise™. As used herein, the term report refers to information automatically retrieved (i.e., in response to computer executable instructions) from a data source (e.g., a database, a data warehouse, a plurality of reports, and the like), where the information is structured in accordance with a report schema that specifies the form in which the information should be presented. A non-report is an electronic document that is constructed without the automatic retrieval of information from a data source. Examples of non-report electronic documents include typical business application documents, such as a word processor document, a presentation document, and the like.
A report document specifies how to access data and format it. A report document where the content does not include external data, either saved within the report or accessed live, is a template document for a report rather than a report document. Unlike other non-report documents that may optionally import external data within a document, a report document by design is primarily a medium for accessing and formatting, transforming or presenting external data.
A report is specifically designed to facilitate working with external data sources. In addition to information regarding external data source connection drivers, the report may specify advanced filtering of data, information for combining data from different external data sources, information for updating join structures and relationships in report data, and logic to support a more complex internal data model (that may include additional constraints, relationships, and metadata).
In contrast to a spreadsheet, a report is generally not limited to a table structure but can support a range of structures, such as sections, cross-tables, synchronized tables, sub-reports, hybrid charts, and the like. A report is designed primarily to support imported external data, whereas a spreadsheet equally facilitates manually entered data and imported data. In both cases, a spreadsheet applies a spatial logic that is based on the table cell layout within the spreadsheet in order to interpret data and perform calculations on the data. In contrast, a report is not limited to logic that is based on the display of the data, but rather can interpret the data and perform calculations based on the original (or a redefined) data structure and meaning of the imported data. The report may also interpret the data and perform calculations based on pre-existing relationships between elements of imported data. Spreadsheets generally work within a looping calculation model, whereas a report may support a range of calculation models. Although there may be an overlap in the function of a spreadsheet document and a report document, these documents express different assumptions concerning the existence of an external data source and different logical approaches to interpreting and manipulating imported data.
To date, collaborative working environments, business intelligence, and particularly report generation techniques, have operated in different domains. It would be desirable to provide techniques to integrate these separate domains.